Updated 6:20 pm, Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Photo: John Davenport /San Antonio Express-News

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Ashleigh Browning Welsh is led to a van from John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse in 2016. She and her husband each received a 27-year prison sentence for abusing a 6-year-old girl in producing and sending child pornogrpahy. The pair lived in Stockdale, and the videos they made first came to the attention of authorities in New Zealand. less

Ashleigh Browning Welsh is led to a van from John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse in 2016. She and her husband each received a 27-year prison sentence for abusing a 6-year-old girl in producing and sending ... more

A woman accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl during video-recorded sex sessions with her husband pleaded not guilty Tuesday to producing child pornography.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo entered the plea for Ashleigh Browning Welsh, 22, after asking her lawyer, Tom Clarke, if he was comfortable with her ability to understand the arraignment proceedings.

Welsh, arrested in December and examined on orders of another federal judge, had been found competent, Clarke said, adding that he didn’t agree with the finding.

“I don’t think she’s playing with a full deck,” Clarke said in a later interview. “She’s had a long history of sexual abuse, and has been on medications for schizophrenia. A lot of it is undiagnosed. In my opinion, she has a deep-seated psychological personality disorder.”

In October, investigators in New Zealand came across three videos and 76 images that included the 6-year-old being sexually assaulted. They were pursuing someone there who said he received the images through the Kik messenger application. Law officers traced the material to the San Antonio area and alerted U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.

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Agents here identified the adults as Welsh and William Richard Welsh, who also is accused of molesting the girl and has pleaded not guilty. They arrested the pair in Sandia, northwest of Corpus Christi, after learning the videos and images were produced in Stockdale, east of San Antonio. Both were indicted in March on seven counts of producing child porngraphy, each punishable by up to 30 years in prison.